


dissolving like the setting sun

by bugmadoo



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Stream of Consciousness, episode coda, post 3x03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 19:26:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6920005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugmadoo/pseuds/bugmadoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can’t fucking sleep. He’s not sure he will ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dissolving like the setting sun

**Author's Note:**

> A small coda for episode 3x03
> 
> Title comes from [Queen of Peace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7mXXqfVeGc) by Florence + the Machine

He can’t sleep.

The only reason he actually knows how many days it’s been since the funeral is because he can trace back the time it has taken him to find out who had been the reason his wife was dead. Now that the fucker was as dead as he could be, Tommy finds himself drifting sometimes, time blurring and behaving differently than he’s used to. Still, there are plans to be made and business to take care of and he thinks it’s the only thing that has been keeping him alive so far. Even only barely so.

He spends even more time alone now than he did before. His family is suffocating in a way they never used to be, with their constant attempts to gauge his mood and then try to make him feel better. He once heard Polly tell the others “Tommy is grieving” and it’s only then that he realizes that his solitude has not only been of his own choosing. The others are cutting him some slack and it makes anger flare up in him. He doesn’t deserve it. Hell, he shouldn’t have gotten in the position where his family had to cut him some slack in the first place.

He shakes his head and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, the glimmering of his cigarettes the only source of light. The image fits in an almost poetical way, Tommy thinks. Grace had taken all the light with her and darkness is all that’s left.

Once he heard somewhere that a human being can only go eleven days without sleeping, but right now he feels like he could set a new record, medicine be damned.

Sometimes he asks himself why he was even surprised that things happened the way they did because nothing has thrown his sideways like this since he came back from France. He tries to determine where he went wrong along the way, where he should have advised another plan, another decision. At some point, events and timelines get tangled up in his head so badly and the anger returns because he will never be able to change the outcome.

He’s still caught in the crossfires of people and organizations that are more powerful than him with no real way out unless he does what they ask of him. It’s business, is what they tell him.

He’s tired, tired of it all. But he can’t sleep.

In the deep hours of the night there are feelings clawing at his chest which he tries his best to suppress during the day, but nighttime has always been when he is at his most vulnerable.

His bones feel heavy in his body, his blood flowing too slowly through his veins, his breathing not fast enough – sometimes it’s like there isn’t enough oxygen in the world to satisfied his tired lungs. His feet drag along the floor no matter how lightly or how fast he tries to walk, almost like a pair of anchors was appeared tied to his feet when Grace took her last breath. It’s probably the grief everyone around him always talks about making him feel this way, but he ignored the word because it doesn’t feel big enough. Important enough.

The image of his hands coated in her blood has branded itself into the backs of his eyes, appearing whenever he closes his eyes, haunting him. He takes is for the violent reminder that it is and sometimes he closes his eyes just to see what he’s done. It’s a sharp stab of pain every time and he is almost glad for it because it grounds him, because it’s not even a part of the pain she probably felt, because someone has to carry the burden of Grace Shelby’s death.

Some nights all he can feel is anger, bright and red, like a heatwave slowly running his body into the ground. During those times he’s even more restless than he already is and he feels like ripping off his own skin so he can make the prickling current under his skin stop. The only thing that gives him a little peace is destructing and ruin. The night of the funeral he came home and shredded the first room that lay in his way. Unleashing all the fury he had held in more or less, the dining room looked like a storm had ripped off the ceiling of the house and destroyed everything in its wake.

He doesn’t actually remember doing it, his memory picks up again when he was standing in the middle of the room, breathing heavily, and Arthur is standing in the doorway. Furniture is overturned, papers ripped and scattered on the floor, a broken glass of whiskey on the floor. Arthur looked like he had been expecting something like this and Tommy hates that he has become predictable apparently.

Tommy also finds that he fully understands the concept of regret now. Usually, Tommy doesn’t like to spend much time dwelling on the past. Then again Grace had taught him the true meaning of the sentiment in the first place so it seems only fitting that it should be something he carries with him for the rest of his life. Still, he can’t find it in himself to be mad at her. He misses her too much for that.

So much so that he spends most of his time, nights especially, outside the house. He had bought it for her and now every corner and every turns reminds him of her, reminds him of moments they had together that he will never tell a soul about. Nobody will appreciate the memories as much as they should.

The overwhelming guilt is the hardest one to deal with. It feels like a tidal wave taking him under and no matter how hard he tries to break through the surface of the water, he can’t. The chorus of _it’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault_ in his head won’t let him.

Because of him she was dead. The woman he loved, dead. It had been his fault that she came back in the first place and Tommy runs a thousand scenarios through his head of what little circumstances had to have been different for Grace to lie next to him right now. Because of him she became collateral damage in a political play he made his family part of. Because of him Charles is going to grow up without a mother.

The thought of Charles is another sharp pain through his heart and he flinches. Little, innocent Charles who already reminds him so much of her that sometimes Tommy has trouble breathing when he looks at his son. Precious but heartbreaking Charles who hasn’t asked for his Mommy yet tonight, but Tommy knows he will soon enough and it will hurt more than he thought anything could. He worries about him, even more than before because he has to do the worrying for two people now.

Tommy had begun to believe that he maybe had left the version of him behind that France had made of him, no longer a hollow shell but maybe something resembling a normal human being as much as he ever could. Now, he feels like he did when he first set foot back into England after they ripped his soul to shreds and gave him a medal for it. No, worse in fact, because back then he had whatever little hope he could muster. Now he doesn’t.

When he lies awake at night Tommy Shelby thinks about fate and the universe, religion and karma, the future and the past, and everything in between.

He can’t fucking sleep. He’s not sure he will ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at [caputdraconis.tumblr.com](http://caputdraconis.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
